Pokemon Uranium Still Alive Despite Nintendo Takedown

The developers of the fan-made Pokemon Uranium reveal the game’s player count, and discuss content that they plan on adding to the project in future updates.

Pokemon fans are waiting patiently for the release of Pokemon Sun and Moon later this year, but a fan-made game was released in the meantime to help tide them over. That game, Pokemon Uranium, has already been taken down due to Nintendo’s demands, but despite this, its community is stronger than ever, and the developers plan on continuing support for the project through a series of free updates.

One of the developers, a 22 year-old woman named Involuntary Twitch who has been working on this game since she was 13, has offered fans an idea of what to expect from the free updates for Pokemon Uranium. The patches will address some of the game’s lingering bugs and technical issues, but they will also add substantial content to lengthen the game.

As it stands, it is not possible for players to capture all the nuclear Pokemon listed in Pokemon Uranium‘s Pokedex. So, there are plans to update Pokemon Uranium to include side quests that will allow players to capture the eight Pokemon that are currently unavailable to catch in the game. It’s possible that other large content updates could come as well, but the developers aren’t revealing what they could entail just yet.

Some may find it odd that the developers would continue support for a game that can no longer be downloaded in an official capacity. However, the developers claim that Pokemon Uranium currently has an active player count of over 1 million players, and when one takes into account those that downloaded it from torrent sites or other means, that number is probably much higher. Pokemon Uranium has an advantage in that it was a free download, but even so, amassing such a large number of players in such a short time is impressive.

There’s a chance that Pokemon Uranium enjoyed a boost from the recent popularity of Pokemon GO. Pokemon GO earned more than $200 million in its first month available, and has been played by millions upon millions of wannabe Pokemon trainers the world over. It really seems to have returned Pokemon‘s popularity to heights it last saw at its peak in the 90’s, and it’s possible that the increased attention people have been paying to the franchise lately because of Pokemon GO helped Pokemon Uranium achieve its impressive numbers.

Even if Pokemon Uranium fails to maintain its numbers, though, the developers will probably continue to support it. After all, the people behind the game have been working on it as a labor of love for the past nine years, so there’s little reason to think that they will stop now, even after Pokemon Uranium has been taken down by Nintendo.